Dracula vs. Catholic Schoolgirl

Today we had a Halloween costume contest at work. It seems like this past week I have heard two common themes about Halloween costumes.

1. Girls always try to have their boyfriends/husbands dress in a “couples” costume.
2. Girls use Halloween as an excuse to dress like a slut without anyone looking at down them.

I guess I have realized these two points before, but this year I have listened to at least 3 different radio shows which discussed both topics, and I have read a couple of articles on the subject as well. I must say that I completely agree with both of these points.

Vanessa and I do have a “couples” costume. Normally I would balk at the idea, but she came up with a good idea so I’m going along with it. The Halloween costume at work today solidified the second point. The guys dressed up as Dracula, a Red Neck, a hunter, Hanibal Lecter, Mormans, etc. The girls wore sexier outfits such as a Catholic Schoolgirl (WOW!!!), two gypsies (with tight tops and flat stomachs showing), four prostitutes (not together), a cavewoman (wearing a very short leopard-skin dress), a devil with a tight bodysuit, a cat (meow), shall I go on?

I have no problem with it; actually I encourage it. I think it’s great. The girls obviously want the attention and the guys are more than happy to look. I just wish it were like this everyday.

Speak ENGLISH!!!

I can already feel the backlash from this entry, but I am tired of people living here and not being able to speak English! The other day I went to a drive-thru restaurant for lunch. Since the name of the place is “Mike’s” and the menu was in English, I didn’t think much of it.

Mike’s Employee: “Hola.”

Me: Hi, I’d like a pastrami sandwich, fries, and a Diet Coke.

Mike’s Employee: “¿qué?”

Me: I’d like a pastrami sandwich, fries, and a Diet Coke.

Mike’s Employee: “Burrito?”

Me: No, pastrami.

Mike Employee: (Long Pause)… Uh…

I look up to the window to see a very confused Hispanic woman looking at me from the drive-thru window. She waves for me to drive forward. When I get to the window she calls aver another girl who speaks English to take my order. How can you hire someone to work at the drive-thru window of a restaurant that isn’t at least bilingual?

At my last job, almost no one in the warehouse spoke English, so several of us would need an interpreter anytime we would talk to an employee. There were signs and instructions only posted in Spanish with no English translation. At my job now, although many of the warehouse employees only speak Spanish, I am happy to see that everything is posted in English and all meetings are held in English. The VP of Operations, who is Hispanic and speaks Spanish fluently, will only talk to the employees in English. Even if they speak to him in Spanish, he will reply in English.

When I lived in Germany, I spoke German. I took a couple of years of German in school before I went there, but I picked-up more from living there and having to adapt. Although most of the population speaks English I felt it was my responsibility to learn their language.

This may be a bit extreme, but how about making people who want to become US citizens take a test to show at least a basic understanding of the English language?

Looking back, I wish I had taken Spanish in school as well as German.

Get this thing off of me!!!

Last night I went to James and Steve’s house for dinner. Everyone brought something, so we ended up with cheese and crackers, sourdough bread with a garlic dipping sauce, steak, pork marinated in the same garlic sauce, chicken sausages, garlic cheese bread, and coleslaw. Not bad for a bunch of guys. It’s kind of nice just hanging out with the guys and talking crap.

I slept miserably last night with the cast on. It really wasn’t too bad during the day. I just had to get used to driving with it. Once I got into bed, I realized how uncomfortable it could be. I wanted to tear the stupid thing off all night long. I woke up this morning with bruises on my ankle and the top of my foot from banging around in the cast all night. Showering was an adventure too. The doctor suggested a special airtight rubber sock that “slips” over the cast and then you pump all of the air out (no jokes please). Well this thing didn’t exactly slip. It took quite a bit of effort from Vanessa and I to get this thing over the cast. I didn’t have a whole lot of patience at 5:20 am. Once it was on it worked well and I was able to shower without a problem. I was able to get my jeans on, so I won’t have to hear any more jokes about wearing shorts at work. I can’t believe I have to do this for another 4 weeks – minimum!

Ali G Indahouse: SNAP!

Yesterday, I had my first appointment with the podiatrist. We talked for a while about the injury and all of the things it could be as he pushed and pulled on my foot. He was sure it was an injury to one of my tendons, but he took an x-ray just in case. Well, I broke it. To be more exact I have an avulsion fracture of the 5th metatarsal. So this morning I had to go back to his office and have a fiberglass cast put on my right foot from my toes to over my calf. I have to wear this thing for two weeks. Then I go back in, get another x-ray, and have another cast put back on for two more weeks. Here’s the bad part. If the x-ray doesn’t show that’s it’s healing and is no longer separated, then I will have to have a screw put into my foot.

He said if I would have gone in right after it broke, then they would have put the screw in right away. Since I waited (not knowing it was broken), they will try the cast first to see if it will heal. I have never had a surgical procedure done, so I really hope it heals with the cast. If not, then we will wait until after our Europe trip to do the surgery.

You can read about how I originally injured and re-injured my foot here: http://pageandvanessa.blogspot.com/2004/10/im-late-for-work-ow.html

So now I have broken my foot, my hand, my arm, my thumb, a toe, and my nose. I’m getting good at this.

Screws in my tires!

Vanessa and I have punctured our tires 4 times in the last 6 months! This includes three different tires on the car and one on the truck. This is so irritating. The first one Vanessa ran over was a 4 inch bolt. This one was done with such accuracy that we had to replace the tire. Ch-ching! Next came a screw in the car tire about two months ago, then another screw in the car tire last month. Both of these were patched by the local tire store with ease.

This weekend I went out to the truck to grab some lunch (not that the lunch was in the truck, but I had to get in the truck to drive… never mind). What do you think I found? Good guess! A screw in the tire. It appears to be a slow leak since the tire pressure hasn’t dropped noticeably since Saturday, but I will still need to get it fixed. I should have time tomorrow when I go to the podiatrist. Yes, I decided 8 weeks is too long for my foot to be swollen and hurting.

I’m certain that this isn’t being done intentionally. It would be an amazing effort to get a 4-inch bolt into the first tire like that. Also we have moved since the first incident happened. If it happens again within 6 months, then I may become a little suspicious.

Area Codes

Yesterday when we received the cell phone bill there we noticed some problems with the bill. There were some strange charges, but most importantly my area code had changed from (909) to (951). Aside from the obvious problems with my needing to inform everyone of a new number there is also the stigma of having either of these area codes.

I grew up in Diamond Bar, which was/is a nice upper-middle class area. When the area code originally changed from (714) to (909) back in the 1980’s (909) still carried some prestige. Then in the early 1990’s all of the people in Southern California that couldn’t afford houses started moving into the Inland Empire, east of the 15 freeway (Marino Valley, Fontana, etc.). Very quickly, Riverside and San Bernardino became white trash and meth-lab central. Despite the fact that Diamond Bar is in Los Angeles County, it was still associated with the (909).

When Riverside changed to the (951) earlier this year, it was the first time in history that an area code was changed by request and not by a lack of available numbers. People living in that area were embarrassed by the stereotype associated with their area code. Since I know that (951) will still be associated with that area of Southern California, I don’t want my cell phone to have that area code. Stupid? Yes, but I know many other who have done the same.

People in Southern California are grouped by area code more than by county. The prestigious area codes seem to be (949) South Orange County, (310) Santa Monica and Malibu, and (714) North Orange County. Next is (818) San Fernando Valley, (626) Pasadena, (562) Long Beach, and (323) parts of LA and Hollywood. The bad ones seem to be (213) Downtown LA, (909) San Bernardino County, and (951) Inland Empire/Riverside County. There are of course exceptions and I am sure there are different opinions, but this is how area codes are viewed in Southern California.

So, I now have a (714) cell phone number to match my home number.

Barbequing in the Rain

James called me Tuesday night to invite me over on Wednesday to hang out and BBQ. I called him yesterday afternoon as I was driving home from work in a downpour to see if we were still on. It’s like the thought never entered his mind that a rainstorm might stop a BBQ.

Traffic was light, so on my way home from work I stopped by Best Buy to pick-up the wireless networking stuff I need and Home Depot. For $2.12 I picked up an 8-foot post, which does a fantastic job of holding the waterlogged garage door open. I left my place around 6:30 pm to drive to James’. I’m a confident driver, but I drove with white knuckles the whole way to Newport. Yorba Linda was flooded, so I couldn’t see the lanes and traffic lights were out. The water was over the curbs on most of the streets. When I got on the freeway it really started coming down. People were going in and out of their lanes and even at 45 mph the truck was hydroplaning.

It was nice to hang out with James, Travis, and Steve. We watched the Red Sox beat the Yankee’s and talked about everything from the price of houses, to immigration, to vulgar things I won’t go into here. The rain actually let up, so it wasn’t a problem cooking everything up on the BBQ. We had garlic cheese bread, great steaks, and asparagus. It was a fun night.

Storm Crisis 2004

First let me start by saying that I love the rain. I have always enjoyed rain, wind, lightning, and thunder. Let me qualify that… I love the rain as long as I am inside, in my car, or very well dressed. There’s just something about knowing I am warm and protected from the elements. So, when our garage door is soaked and will not stay open on it’s own, I am NOT happy. Our garage door is much bigger than average. I would guess that it’s about 10 feet tall (normal is about 7 feet), is wider than normal, and has bigger springs than I have ever seen on a garage door. Despite that, even in good weather it’s heavy. All of this rain has made it so heavy that I have to stand outside in the rain, holding the garage open, while Vanessa proceeds to pull both cars in/out of the garage.

The owner of the condo promised to have a new garage with a garage door opener installed before the rain started. I didn’t believe her anyway. Despite that, I am still enjoying the rain. I have fun driving through puddles, wearing boots and a sweatshirt, and sleeping with extra thick blankets.

I hope it stays like this for a while.

Now that’s a coupon!

While I was browsing the Internet yesterday I found an article on gizmodo.com about a special deal at Dell. Dell was offering an online coupon valid yesterday and today only - $750.00 off of a laptop with a price of $1500.00 or more. Vanessa and I have been talking about getting a laptop, but were not planning on buying one so quick. I couldn’t pass up a deal like that. So, I built a laptop, which coincidently ended up with a value of $1501.00.

I went back to look at the coupon details later in the day and noticed 10 minutes after I placed my order they changed the coupon to exclude the laptop I ordered. Too late! I already had my confirmation and a second email showing they were working on my order. This morning, only one laptop model is available for the coupon and I saw another site saying the coupon was canceled completely just after 2:00 AM.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to getting it set-up. I have $75 worth of gift cards and coupons at Best Buy, so I will be setting-up a wireless network at home this weekend. Wee!!!

Halloween Costumes

As Halloween approaches each year I always think back to past costumes to see if they might work again. The fist costume I can remember was a devil. I must have been 2 or 3. When I was 5, I was Luke Skywalker. I was a pirate several times. One year I decided Halloween night that I did want to dress up. My mom got a bunch of balloons, and a clear trash bag. I went as a bag of jellybeans. I was a woman twice. About 5 years ago I was a gangster. The last time I dressed up I was a gynecologist.

My worst costume ever: Stormtrooper. I was in 3rd grade (1983) and Return of the Jedi had just been released in May (yes I had to look that up). I went to school with my costume under my school clothes and waited for the unveiling until it was time for the parade. The parade went around the entire school and each grade level walked in front of the other kids and all of the parents. Once it was time, I took off my school clothes and put on my mask. So my costume consisted of a Stormtrooper mask, my sisters white tights and her white leotard. The laughter was damaging. Even the parents laughed at me.

Vanessa came up with a pretty good idea this year for costumes, so I'm excited. I think we can pull it off pretty well and I will have a good time putting everything together.

Cafe Tu Tu expensive for the amount of food.

Friday
Vanessa called me at work to let me know she wasn’t feeling well and was going home. Show found another teacher to cover her last class and headed home. I guess she had a really bad headache that made her nauseous. I still think she has a food allergy, but we haven’t been able to figure out what it is yet. By the time I got home, I wasn’t feeling good either. I wasn’t surprised since my food intake for the day consisted of breakfast at Jack in the Box, 3 Krispy Kreme donuts, pretzels, a Quizno’s sandwich, and 4 diet cokes. This is all before 2:00 pm. We ended up going to Graziano's for dinner. Vanessa was starting to feel better by then, but I just picked at my food and brought most of it home.

Saturday
There is a walking/equestrian trail that cuts through Yorba Linda and goes right past our place (on the map we are next to Hurless Barton Park and Mimi's is next to the Imperial Hwy/Yorba Linda Blvd intersection). I have always wanted to explore it, so Saturday morning we decided to walk to Mimi’s Café. It’s a little over a mile from our house and is about 3 blocks off of the trail. This was probably a mistake since my foot is still hurting and Vanessa didn’t really want to walk. We stopped at Baskin Robbins to make the walk back a little more tolerable. We spent most of the afternoon catching up on TV. LOST is great! I definitely have my theories about what is really going on, but I will keep them to myself since I am confident in my theories.

Saturday night we met some old work friends at Café Tu Tu Tango in Orange. It was a tapas (small appetizers) type of menu, which is kind of fun, but it took forever to fill us up. It ended up being a little over $30 per person and didn’t seem like a good value. The food was great though.

Sunday
Waking up to the rain was refreshing. After a quick shower we straightened-up the house since my dad was coming over to watch the 49ers game. He brought Vodka, Bloody Mary mix, and muffins like any great dad should. The 49ers played a strong first half, but ended up losing momentum and the game in the second half.

I spent the rest of the day eating pizza, watching TV, and writing “ThankYou” letters (we finished 9 more).

Fast Forwarding

I find myself always wanting to fast forward through parts of my life. It seems like there is always something I am anticipating to happen (the weekend, Halloween party, Thanksgiving, our trip to Europe, etc.) and I just want to skip the rest of the days until that event.

I was watching a show about luxury yachts a couple of days ago. One of the people they interviewed was talking about when they first bought the yacht they were always looking forward to their destination. As time went on they realized the journey to the destination was the best part. I think to enjoy life, you have to enjoy the boring every day stuff and not just the waypoints. Many times the event doesn’t turn out the way you anticipate anyway.

I remember talking to someone about this once. I was talking about how I always had this picture in my head of how I wanted something to go and then I was disappointed when the reality did not match the picture. It wasn’t that the reality was worse. I was just disappointed because it didn’t match my picture. That was 6 years ago. Since then I have become better at not depending on the picture. I guess in a way I have purposefully become pessimistic so I won’t feel disappointed. Don’t a lot of people do this? I hear a lot of people say, “I’m pessimistic and so if something goes well then I am happy.” I guess it’s another defense we use to protect ourselves.

A mechanic I am not.

When I was growing up my dad thought it was very important for me to know the basics about working on a car. Together we would change the oil and filter, replace the brakes, swap out the bearings, add distilled water to the battery, change the plugs, and so on. When I got my first car this came in very handy. When something happened on my Volkswagen bug I learned to do some very creative things to get it working again.

I remember one time I was about 5 miles for the house the throttle cable broke (goes for the gas pedal to the engine to control your speed). It took me about 30 seconds to figure out I could adjust the idle speed up by turning a screw, which would feed more gas to the engine. I wouldn’t be able to adjust my speed, but by using my gears and my brakes I was able to get the car home in a matter of minutes. I was proud of that.

Yesterday I commented that I had a problem with the electrical system in the truck. Vanessa and I carpooled to work and the truck stayed at home. After dinner I called AAA to give me a jumpstart thinking that the battery was dead. When the guy arrived I mentioned that I have never had this happen with a battery before. I had replaced the battery about 6 months ago and it was supposed to be a really good battery. Plus, when I was leaving for work in the morning the power worked fine until I tried to start it. The starter kicked in and turned over once, then everything went dead. No lights, no sounds, no display. It’s like the power cut off all at once.

The tow truck driver took a look at my battery, grabbed a pair of pliers, turned the bolt that holds the connections on to the battery about a ½ turn, and told me to try to start it. It worked. Duh! I guess the connections came loose over the last couple of months. When the engine tried to start in the morning it shook it just enough to loose contact. I had looked at the connections earlier, but I didn’t try to tighten them since they looked okay. So, the truck is back in business. I felt a little dumb, but that’s what AAA is for.

The worlds' smallest violin

I have been spending a lot of my time thinking about my finances for the next 5 years. My dad is getting very close to retiring and I have been trying to help him plan his finances by building some complex Excel spreadsheets. They seem to work pretty well. I have also been looking at how I will accomplish my goals for the next 5 years. The truck had a problem again today (something with the electrical system), so buying car is definitely on my mind. I am still going to try and hold off for another year.

In the next 5 years I am planning on paying off all of our credit cards, buying a car, having kids, buying a house (probably in that order). It seems so impossible to buy a house these days. I am planning on talking to someone at the Credit Union on Friday about what we should be doing now to prepare ourselves. I am hoping there are special things we can do since Vanessa is a teacher and we will be first-time buyers.

It’s amazing that my parents bought their 1st house when they were around 25. I am almost 30 and still have several years of savings to go. I’m just hoping to buy a condo in a nice neighborhood. If the cost of houses continues to go up we may not even be able to do that. Crazy.

Who woulda thunk it?

I’m sitting in the Oakland Airport waiting for my flight home. What a game! The first 3 quarters were depressing and the crowd, which was already small, started leaving early. Then in the 4th quarter the 49er's came back 16 points in less than 5 minutes to tie the game. Suddenly the fans that were booing the quarterback (including me) were screaming and giving each other high-fives. They won in overtime with a field goal. So now they are 1 and 4. It was a fun day.

Vanessa came down with a cold Friday night, so we spent most of the weekend trying to get better. She was downing the DayQuil while I put ice on my foot. We did manage to get to Bed, Bath, and Beyond to purchase the items which were remaining on that registry. We had a 20% off coupon for the entire purchase so it saved us a ton of money. Time to board the plane!

I’m late for work… Ow!!!

I woke up a little late this morning, so I rushed through my morning routine. One thing I always do before I leave is check the traffic on http://www.sigalert.com/. This morning I noticed there was a sizable accident on my way to work, so I decided to take different freeways. Overall, it would add about 10 minutes onto my drive and I was leaving 10 minutes late as it was. I was driving away when I realized I forgot something and had to turn around. As I ran back to the house I heard something pop, then I felt a burning sensation in my foot. I tore the tendon in my right foot. I originally tore the tendon at Jennie’s birthday while running to a car accident to see if the driver was okay. That was 6 weeks ago. It has been hurting ever since then, but it was just starting to get better. Anyway, now I’m back to square one.

I’m off to San Francisco Sunday to watch the 49ers play the Arizona Cardinals. This will be the first of four games we are going to this year. My dad and I have this down to a science now. We earn a free airline ticket after 4 trips. My dad then sells the free tickets for $350 a piece and that covers the cost of our flights (more or less). We take a bus, a subway, and another bus to get to the game. It only costs around $20 to get from the airport to the game and back. Not bad. Anyway, it will be fun getting up early and going to sleep late so I can watch them lose in person.

Great picture! I found this at http://fater.blogspot.com/2004/10/from-andy-axel.html

Traffic is killing me!!!

I mentioned in my last entry that my commute is roughly 2 ½ hours each day. Before school started at the beginning of September it was only 1 ½ hours. I still cannot believe that when I get on the freeway at 6:00 AM within a mile of the onramp I am sitting in stop-and-go traffic.

I have several people to blame for my crappy commute. The first to blame is myself. When I was contemplating taking this job I knew the commute would be bad. I worked in the same area before with almost the same commute and knew what it would be like. The 20% pay increase made my decision.

The next people I would like to blame are families with children. You can call me a hypocrite in a couple of years. During the summer I miss all of the traffic, because most people don’t start work until 8 or 9 AM. During the school year not only do you add 106,000 teachers and staff to the mix (23,659 Orange County and 82,447 Los Angeles County), but you also have the parents leaving for work earlier so they can drop off their kids at school. There are also the students who drive to school.

I would also like to pass some blame onto the illegal immigrants. There are an estimated 2.4 million illegal immigrants living in California today. While one could argue that many do not drive, but many do drive and they are on the roads and freeways as well.

My last piece of blame goes to the government. Nearly 70% of Californians voted to pass Proposition 42 in 2003, which specifically called for $1 billion of budget money (created by raising the gasoline tax) to be put towards relieving traffic congestion and improving roads. Every year since then the governor has put the $1 billion towards non-transportation projects by declaring a “fiscal emergency”.

I would love to take the Metro, but there aren’t any stops near my work.

Decisions, descisions, decisions

Vanessa has been working on her Master’s program (in Secondary Education) for a couple of years now. With any luck she will be done by June, which means she will receive an automatic pay raise next year on top of her yearly increase. This is one of the benefits of being a teacher. Any degree for me would amount to a pat on the back from my employer.

Almost two years ago we sold my car, a Honda Civic, and bought a Honda Accord for her. Her truck was 5 years old and we were only 2 months away from having it paid off, so we agreed I would drive the truck until we could afford another new car. With her graduation and pay raise coming next year and the plans of starting a family in 2006, I have started looking for a replacement for the truck. By next summer the truck will be 8 years old and it will be time to replace it.

I have always been a car fanatic and there are several types of cars I have always wanted. Here are some examples that are in a realistic price range.

Big Truck – Such as a Ford F-150 or the new Nissan Titan.
Fun Car – Possibly the redesigned 2005 Mustang GT or Infinity G35 Coupe
Nice Sedan – The Acura TL

Since kids will be in the picture, the “Fun Car” just isn’t smart at this time. This is something I can hold off on until I retire. A “Large Truck” would fit me, but the gas mileage sucks and I wouldn’t use it fro hauling very often. I commute about 2.5 hours every day. Therefore I am thinking the “Nice Sedan” is the correct choice. I would really like a navigation system. I think about it everyday on my commute or when I get lost on the weekends.

The car I have been drooling over for the past 4 years is the Acura TL. It has a V6 with 300 hp, all of the normal luxuries and some extras including Navigation, BlueTooth phone integration, two-person seat/mirror memory (very important since I am 6’5” and she is 5’2”), 5.1 Dobly Surround Sound with 8 speakers, dual climate control with compensation for sunlight (the car actually tracks the sun and adjusts the temperature for that side of the car to compensate for the extra heat), voice recognition (controls the phone, navigation, temperature, fan, radio, etc.), and automatic rearview mirror dimming. All of these (minus the Navigation) come standard on the car.

Trading in the truck will make the price more realistic, but since I still have another year to go, I’m sure I will change my mind 20 times between now and then.

My time traveling hairdresser

When I was getting my haircut on Sunday the guy cutting my hair (not my normal place) mentioned he was having a hard time concentrating, because he is going through a lot right now. People usually don’t talk to me when they’re cutting my hair, so I’m not used to having a conversation. I really didn’t want to pry into his life and turn my haircut into a Sally Jesse Raphael episode, so I gave him the standard, “A lot of times when you’re depressed it’s hard to see all of the great things in your life” speech. Hell, I didn’t want the guy to kill himself right there. He then started talking about the universe and time travel. I guess he spends a lot of his time thinking about this stuff and how insignificant we are in the world. These things depress him. Anyway, talking about time travel seemed to cheer him up and he finished my hair.

Last night I watched a film The Jimmy Show. I recorded it because I enjoy Frank Whaley (pictures of Frank Whaley) and the films I have seen him in (Career Opportunities, Field of Dreams, Swimming with Sharks, Pulp Fiction, Red Dragon, etc.). The Jimmy Show is an independent film he co-wrote, directed, and starred in. It’s about a guy who lives in New Jersey. He works at a grocery store and is trying to become a stand-up comedian. Sounded good to me. I figured there will be some good laughs and would show how he grows into a good comedian. Man was this a depressing movie! When he goes on stage he doesn’t tell jokes. He just dumps his extremely depressing life onto the audience. I won’t ruin the ending for anyone, but I had to stay-up and watch something fun just so I wouldn’t have depressing dreams.

All of this started me thinking about how some people have a good life and they kill themselves because they get depressed. Others have a terrible life with nothing to live for and they don’t even think about suicide. Very odd.

I cheered myself up by watching Cold Turkey. That’s the new reality show I told you about on PAX. The premise is great. They told each of the people on the show they were going onto a reality show they would love. For one person it was racing cars, another was to train for a mission to space, own an island, design men’s underwear, etc. So everyone was excited when they got to the house. As they started talking to each other they realized no one was there for the same show. Everyone starts smoking.

Then the host comes out. This is the worst host EVER! His name is AJ Benza. I have seen this guy on Howard Stern, but he hasn’t ever done anything, so I can’t figure out how he got this job. He comes off as a cocky asshole. All of the smokers are pissed when they find out they have been lied to and that they are really on the show to quit smoking. Immediately, they all start chain-smoking. One girl is actually smoking 5 cigarettes at a once just to get it all in. So this guy AJ says crap like, “The producers aren’t the only one’s that care about you, your family loves you to.” PLEASE! The producers don’t give a crap. In the previews for next week they bring a hot model into the house that chain-smokes right in front of everyone just to torcher them. Anyway, it looks okay, but PAX tries to come across like they really care about the people by taking them to a morgue and stuff like that. I’ll watch the next one and decide whether to keep recording it or not.

Liars, Insurance, Golf, and UB40

Okay, so that stuff I wrote about on Friday never happened. I was bored and wanted to see if I could drive some of you crazy. I think it worked, because I had several people this weekend ask me what happened to my co-workers.

Friday night Vanessa and I went to Mandarin House in Anaheim Hills for Chinese food. We always get the same thing: Three-flavor Sizzling Rice Soup, the appetizer platter, Crispy Chicken, and Szechwan Beef. The have another location in Diamond Bar. It’s goooooood.

Saturday started with a trip to the local AAA office to get all of our car and renters insurance needs taken car of. After waiting for 30 minutes (extraordinarily long for AAA) we sat down and started the 90-minute process of combining our insurance and rewriting the renters insurance. The good news is that being married, having multiple policies, and keeping both of the cars in the garage has lowered our premiums substantially. Yeah!!!

Afterward, we went across the street to Bagel Me for lunch. The have all of the normal bagel needs for the morning, but there real treat is the Bacon Avocado Burger. I took Montez to the Bagel Me in Placentia once, but that one sucked. The one in Anaheim Hills is much better. We headed off to the barber to get my haircut, but they were closed. I don’t understand this place! This is the 4th time I have gone there and even though I get there an hour or more before they close, the door is locked and they are closed. This time they closed 4 hours early!!! I’m not ever going back there again.

We spent the afternoon writing the Thank You letters for our wedding presents. We finished 35 of them and still have another 40 to go. I picked-up Lucile’s BBQ for dinner. I think I’m going to start getting dinner “to go” more often. It was so easy and tasted just as good. No tip needed and we received a magnet for the refrigerator. It was fun pulling into the “To Go Orders Only” parking space, walking past a hundred people, picking-up dinner, and leaving within 5 minutes. The wait to eat there was over an hour.

Sunday was my day to get everything done. I got propane for the BBQ, got my much-needed haircut, and stopped at the grocery store. I needed to pick-up beer for golfing and stuff for dinner. After a quick stop at home I stopped by my mom’s house. Her 15-year-old VCR died, so I dropped off one of ours. We don’t use them anymore and they are just sitting around. I met Jim, James, and Steve in Diamond Bar to play 9 holes of golf. I always have a great time playing even when I suck (which I did). I had a couple of great shots that made it all worthwhile. I sank a 25 ½ foot putt (James measured), hit a couple of great drives, and on the hole I hate the most my ball landed on the middle of the green. I also had several terrible shots. One of my drives only went 15 feet. Another went 10 feet forward and 30 feet to the right.

I met my dad at our place to watch the 49er game and eat dinner. I picked-up tenderloins, baked potatoes, and corn at the store earlier and cooked everything on the BBQ. As we watched the 49ers lose I was showing my dad a new wine opener we received as a gift and proceeded to spill an entire glass of red wine on the new carpet and the papers Vanessa was grading. Oops!

And then...

The strangest thing happened to me today. When I got to work there was no one here. I mean no one. The parking lot had cars in it, the building was open, but no one was around. I normally can’t go more than 10 feet without seeing someone so this freaked me out. About 200 people work here. Maybe 75 of them should be at work by the time I arrive.

So I started walking around the building to see if everyone was in the lunchroom for a meeting or if everyone was gathered somewhere else, but I still couldn’t find anyone. I walked upstairs to the executive offices and the design areas. All of the lights were on, the computers were on, but no one was there. No one was in Customer Service, no one in Accounting, no one in Imports, no one in Production, and so on.

My mind kept going back and forth between thoughts of “They’re all playing a trick on me”, to “Holy crap this is freaky. Maybe I shouldn’t be in here”. I finally went back outside and walked around the building. There must have been 50 cars, but no people. I was the only one there. I felt like I was in a Twilight Zone episode or something.

As I headed back inside I noticed something extraordinary that I didn’t notice the first time I walked through the building.

Anyway, I’m playing golf this weekend with a couple of friends. I’m looking forward to it, because I haven’t played in a while and it looks like it’s going to be nice weather. I think I’m only going to play nine holes though, because I would also like to watch the 49er game with my dad. The 49ers are playing the Rams and we both hate the Rams. When I was younger I used to pretend I liked the Rams just to get a reaction out of my dad. I’m past that now.